Who cares about the honours system?

A comment writer in a national newspaper has written about the impending elevation of lawyer Shami Chakrabarti to the House of Lords.

First of all, I fail to see how anyone can take the honours system seriously.  I realised many years ago that it was basically one big nonsense, but even so I still feel like a lone voice in the wilderness saying so.

Most honours are utterly pointless and worthless.  Peerages are different in that they confer membership of the upper chamber of the Houses of Parliament complete with a daily attendace allowance.

I accept that someone who has run the village post office for thirty years might feel proud to be awarded the MBE, but this is a very humble honour in comparison with a peerage, and peerages tend to go to political donors and cronies.

David Cameron's final act as Prime Minister was to draw up his resignation honours list, which included sixteen new peerages, most of which have gone to people seen to be politically close to David Cameron.  Nevertheless one of the new peerages has been awarded to recent Labour convert Shami Chakrabarti.

This appointment has been particularly contentious, given that Chakrabarti produced a report on anti-semitism in the Labour Party which has been widely represented - or perhaps misrepresented - as a whitewash.

I have not read her report, and neither do I plan to.  It may be a whitewash, but I somehow doubt it.  Either way, I refuse to regard the elevation of Chakrabarti to the House of Lords as any more of an affront than any of the other peerages handed out in the resignation honours list.

Related previous posts include:
Are you anti-semitic?
Jeremy Corbyn is close to the truth